


This Unavoidable Thing Between Us

by noblydonedonnanoble



Category: Doctor Who RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-05
Updated: 2012-09-12
Packaged: 2017-11-13 14:30:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/504489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noblydonedonnanoble/pseuds/noblydonedonnanoble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: The first times they said "I love you" and what it meant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

                The first time he says it, it means nothing.

                It’s Catherine’s final day of shooting, and as much as she adores everyone on set, she knows it’ll be David who she’ll most miss seeing every day. They’ve grown incredibly close since they started working together, and they fell into a comfortable routine. The idea that this routine is now over… it’s a little overwhelming.

                Even though she knows there’s no reason to view this as a goodbye forever, her farewell party at the hotel that night certainly feels like it. They’re sitting and laughing together, him with his beer and her with her cranberry juice—“Why is it always cranberry juice, Catherine?” “Why, do you have something against cranberry juice?” “Yes Catherine. I don’t approve of this ‘cranberry juice’ nonsense when you’re not working tomorrow and could get absolutely pissed.” “You’re getting pissed enough for the both of us.” “But you won’t have to pretend to pilot a time machine with an immense pounding in your head.”—and she’s just so happy. David always makes her happy.

                As David pointed out, filming continues tomorrow, so several people say goodbye to Catherine fairly early in the evening. Not David, though. He sits with her late into the night, and while Julie and Russell both give him meaningful glances as they depart, he ignores them.

                While they joke about how much he’s drinking, he actually sets aside his alcohol early on, opting for Coke and eventually just water as a replacement. He sneaks sips of her cranberry juice and she scowls at him, though she’s hiding a smile and he knows it.

                They linger until the call is made for last rounds, at which point they realize that it’s been hours since either of them has checked the time.

                “Lemme walk you up to your room,” he says, as they both stand.

                Even though her room is three floors above his, she makes no comment, simply nodding instead.

                No more words are exchanged until they’re standing outside the lifts, waiting. “Do you think we’ll work together again?”

                Catherine looks at him thoughtfully. “Yes. Acting across from you… I don’t know how to describe it.” If she were any more awake, she would have chosen a wonderful way to explain the energy between her and David. As it is, she finally says, “It’s just magic, y’know?”

                This elicits a wide grin from David. “Yeah. Magic.”

                “So,” she says as the door opens. “Clearly it’s bound to happen, because the stars made us compatible for a reason. I should look into that, figure out what it is that does that. What time did you say you were born, again?”

                “Jesus Christ, Catherine, I am not having the astrology argument again, and certainly not now. I need some alcohol in my system for that.”

                “Alcohol.” Catherine laughs. “You have alcohol in your system.”

                “Not enough!” He crosses his arms and grumbles, “At this point, I would _remember_ the conversation and that just won’t do. The fact that the word ‘astrology’ actually came out of my mouth is embarrassing enough.”

                She giggles; he can’t keep a straight face either, and the lift is filled with the sound of their laughter for a few moments. Finally, they quiet down together and she gazes at him, murmuring, “I’ll miss you, David.”

                For some reason, this makes him frown slightly, and they fall silent until they arrive on Catherine’s floor.

                “I think I can make it from here,” she says with a smile.

                “You sure? I’d hate for you to get lost.”

                The joke is stupid, silly and certainly not worth laughing over, but David looks so pleased about it that she can’t help chuckling. “Goodnight, David.” After pausing to make room for a protest that doesn’t come, Catherine leans up to peck him on the cheek. She intends to tell him to go to bed, to sleep well, to have fun tomorrow—she’s not quite sure, yet, what she wants to say.

                But then he turns his head just slightly and her mouth is against his.

                For a moment, she is completely stiff as it registers exactly what David is doing. And then, for a moment she responds favorably, pressing closer because the feel of his lips is so good.

                But it only takes her two moments to process all the things about this that are very _not_ good and, all too abruptly, she pushes him away.

                David’s elbow bumps some of the buttons as he stumbles back, and she groans as the doors shut and the lift begins to go up, with them still inside it. He’s just kissed her, and she has nowhere to run when they’re in a tiny metal box.

                “I think you drank more than you give yourself credit for,” she says slowly, backing into the opposite corner from where he’s still standing.

                “Why are you blaming this on the beer?”

                “Why aren’t you?”

                Catherine wonders, suddenly, if this is something that he’s been planning on doing. Coming on to her after her last day, perhaps thinking that he has nothing to lose anymore.

                He makes no move to come closer, although he looks slightly hurt that she’s put as much space between them as is humanly possible. “I spent so much of our time together thinking about you. When I was at home and away from you, I comforted myself by saying, ‘But I’ll see her tomorrow.’ I can’t say that anymore. I just… I don’t want to feel like we didn’t say goodbye.”

                “And you couldn’t just give me a hug?”

                The door opens suddenly to a new floor, and Catherine actually considers stepping out and taking the stairs down to her room. But she figures that David will follow her—in which case she’ll still have to have this conversation, and actually exert a great deal of energy at the same time. So she stays, and the lift eventually starts going up again.

                “No.” He strides across the lift to her now, standing far too close for comfort. She knows that David isn’t trying to make her uncomfortable. Somewhere, deep down, she knows that it’s a combination of beer and lack of sleep and the fact that this is the end. That doesn’t make it any better. He goes to whisper in her ear, and his breath is hot on her neck. “What’s the phrase again, Catherine? ‘Out with a bang.’ I just want to go out with a bang.”

                The words send a shiver down her spine. David is nearly pressed against her, not moving to give her room to breathe, although at the moment she wouldn’t mind if only she could just _think_. She says the first statement that comes to mind. “I can’t do that to Twig.”

                “Oh. That’s interesting.” David’s lips curl into a pleased smile and he pushes off the wall, taking a few steps back. He continues to gaze at Catherine.

                “Interesting? What? What’s so interesting?” She shifts uncomfortably.

                They hit the top story, and he presses the button to go down—to his floor, she notices, not hers. “I find it interesting…” He begins pacing across the lift, pausing every few seconds to interpret her expression. “That of all the excuses you could come up with, you choose that one.”

                Catherine frowns. “Why?”

                “Because.” David stops directly in front of her, though this time he opts to leave some distance between them. “That’s the excuse that translates to, ‘I want to, but I fancy myself a good enough person to not do anything about it.’” He won’t stop smiling, and she just wishes he would quit for long enough so she could gather her thoughts. “Frankly, it’s almost more of a yes than ‘yes,’ if you think about it.”

                “So what means no?”

                “I suppose probably ‘no.’ Although since _you_ don’t mean it, that doesn’t matter much.”

                She scowls and jabs the button for her floor. “Why are you doing this?”

                “Like you said.” He glances down at his shoes, and it seems as though he’s actually a bit embarrassed. Which took long enough, since he’s decided to proposition her in a hotel lift in the wee hours of the morning. “We’re magic together.”

                Even though that’s not at all what she meant, she suddenly begins to wonder what it would be like to bring him back to her room and actually sleep with him.

                The door opens and she makes to leave the lift. “Goodbye, David.”

                He grabs her wrist as she’s going past him. “Does he make you happy?”

                “What?” The question startles her.

                “Does Twig make you happy.” David over-stresses each word, although she can’t tell if it’s because he wants to be an arse or because he sincerely thinks she missed the question.

                Almost automatically, she wants to say that yes, Twig makes her very happy. But she’s grown close with David. And she’s confided in him that she isn’t happy. Saying anything different would be lying, and he would know it. “No,” she whispers at last.

                Once again, the door closes, and the lift begins to go down.

                “Do I make you happy?” This question has something else hiding behind it, a kind of hope that makes her heart ache.

                “Yes.”

                “So why is it that Twig can shag you, but I can’t?”

                Catherine could make so many complaints about the lack of logic behind his argument. But when he’s so pissed, she simply finds it impressive that he’s arguing his point so concisely.

                Which, perhaps, goes to show that when he wants something, he really makes the effort to get it.

                She can’t help but consider the idea that David was right—her response was a clear ‘yes.’ Because there’s no other way to explain the fact that his argument, weak and unimpressive as it is, is enough to prompt her to start snogging him.

                The doors open on his floor and they finally step out of the lift. He practically runs down the hall, pulling Catherine behind him.

                While he fumbles for his key, she begins to kiss his neck. “Christ, I love you,” he groans.

                “No you don’t.”

                Even though she says it with a laugh, she doesn’t find it very funny. Because he doesn’t love her. She thinks that this was inevitable, but not because he loves her; it’s simply because together, they’re magic.


	2. Chapter 2

                The first time she says it, it means everything.

                There have been a few occasions when David and Catherine have parted, with no certain plans for when they might see each other again. On such occasions, they go as long as possible without acknowledging the inevitable. Because at this point, it is inevitable that regardless of what they think or plan for, David will go to her place, or bring her to his.

                Outside of those nights, their lives carry on. Neither acknowledges what happens—it’s just something that is. They try not to question, because when people question, things always just become complicated. This does not need to become complicated.

                Before the wedding, they put off their goodbyes for as long as is humanly possible; when they see each other, they always make plans for lunch or coffee or dinner for some future date. Filling space. Not wanting the remains of what they have to be knocked off-kilter.

                And then, just like that, Catherine announces at dinner one evening that she’s going to America in a week for work on _The Office_. She can’t even give a finite amount of time in which she plans to return.

                “You didn’t tell me that they wanted you back,” David says this as though he feels betrayed, disappointed that she failed to confide in him about anything.

                “I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure. But… now I’m sure.”

                “Wow.”

                “Yeah.” A sad smile crosses her lips. “I think it would do me good, some time away from London.”

                Away from David.

                She doesn’t say that, but he hears it loud and clear.

***

                David doesn’t like how silent she is. He expects silence as she kisses him, and that happens. He certainly _doesn’t_ expect silence once they’re finally pressed together, skin to skin as their sweaty bodies meld together. There, he’s not disappointed either.

                But afterward, they lie there together and she seems entirely indifferent toward the concept of conversation. Which is not like Catherine at all. Perhaps this is what she does with other men; he wouldn’t know. It’s just that their relationship is nothing like her relationship with other men, and with him she’s always eager to make conversation.

                “Penny for your thoughts?” he mumbles.

                “Hmm?” When Catherine turns to look at him, she looks dazed, but a smile finally crosses her lips. “Oh, I’m not thinking about anything in particular, really. Just… thinking.”

                “I don’t believe that,” David says, chuckling. “You’re always thinking about something, even when you’re thinking about nothing.”

                She grins, but her expression turns serious before she speaks. “I’m just thinking about how strange it will be to not live here. I’ll miss it.”

                “But it’s only for a few months. Right?” He’s very clearly trying _not_ to sound concerned. It’s not working all too well.

                “Oh, David, of course.” Catherine reaches over and brushes his hair out of his eyes, and his expression brightens considerably. “But a few months is a long time. Things are going to happen and I just won’t be here for them.”

                His mind immediately jumps to the wedding, and he wonders if she’s thinking about that too. As good of a friend as she is, he’s not exactly disappointed that she’ll be gone on that particular evening. Honestly, she seemed unsure about coming in the first place, and he thinks that if this hadn’t happened, she would have found another reason not to come.

                And then it occurs to him that she’s more likely talking about Erin because after all Erin’s her _daughter_ and she would want to be around to watch her daughter growing up. His wedding probably hardly matters to her when compared to Erin.

                _He_ probably hardly matters to her.

                Well, no, David knows that’s not true. But he often wonders if he cares about her more than she does him. He knows this is probably something to feel guilty about—after all, he’s getting married soon and should not be worrying about how much affection his best friend has for him.

                But she’s going to be gone tomorrow for months and months and he can’t bear it but she’s acting so nonchalant about the whole thing.

                “I’m sure it’ll go more quickly than you expect,” he says.

                Catherine turns onto her side and watches him for a few moments in silence. He feels uncomfortable, being examined so closely. “You better call me when things happen,” she says at last. “Just because I’m in LA doesn’t mean I suddenly don’t expect to hear about your life.”

                “I’ll send you texts with what I ate for breakfast. What color my socks are. How much product I’ve put in my hair. Does that sound good?”

                “Not enough. I need to know what soap you’re using so I can know what you smell like. Also how regularly you’re washing your hair. This is all relevant information to get the true _experience_.”

                “The experience of being around me,” David muses. He takes Catherine’s hand and pulls her a bit closer. “Is it a good experience?”

                She rolls her eyes. “Yes. I love being around you. As I already said, I’ll miss it.”

                When she was talking about missing London, she was talking about him. The idea is pleasing; he likes knowing that when his best friend is thousands of miles away, she’ll notice the empty space where he should be.

                “I’ll miss you too.” Even though they’re discussing a very unhappy subject, he can’t stop grinning now. “Which is why you had better tell me all about _your_ life too. All of your American friends who are nowhere near as interesting as me.” She giggles. “And if any American men start leering at you, let me know and I’ll promptly fly over to teach them a lesson.”

                “David, all you’d manage to do is possibly give them a paper cut.”

                “You really need to come up with your own ways to tease besides just stealing Donna’s lines all the time.”

                “I’ll do that when you stop being a skinny piece of nothing.” Catherine nudges him in the ribs hard. “See what I did there?”

                Instead of making some snarky remark in response, David grabs the back of her neck and kisses her softly.

                Kissing is something that David and Catherine do on occasion, not purely during these goodbyes. They use it as another means of expressing affection, beyond hugs and holding hands and pecks on the cheek. David never bothers to think about it in too much detail, because if he started to, he would wonder at the differences between how he acts with Catherine and how he acts with Georgia.

                That’s not a road he wants to go down.

                Mostly because he’s scared what the answer will be.

                Catherine stops the kiss, resting her hand on his chest and pushing him away gently. “Do you remember the first time we did this?”

                “Yes.” It would be hard to forget. David woke up the next morning half an hour late, with a massive pounding in his head, but with such vivid images in his mind that he didn’t regret a second of that night. “Why?”

                “It’s just… things were so different then. Do you…” She bites her lip. “Do you think that we would have ended up like this if it weren’t for…”

                “If it weren’t for…?”

                “If it weren’t for how plastered you were?”

                David laughs loudly. “You wouldn’t be bothering to ask that question if you knew how many times I saw you on set every day and thought about pulling you back to my trailer during the next break by any means necessary.”

                “By any means necessary?” He smirks, but it doesn’t seem like he intends to give any sort of verbal response so she continues. “So you think so.”

                “I do. What was it that you said again? What did you say we were?”

                “Magic,” she whispers.

                He stretches out an arm, cradles her cheek in his hand. “Yes. We’re magic. So I think it was unavoidable. I think we would have wondered and I think eventually we would have gotten tired of just wondering.”

                “And once it happened?”

                “It was bound to happen again.”

                David wants to believe that this is it. Because when they see each other next, he will be married. Really, though, he has no reason to be wondering if, because he knows that the question is when.

                Again, it is most certainly bound to happen again and there’s nothing he can do about it.

                “I should go soon,” he says at last.

                “Stay until I fall asleep, David?” she mumbles.

                “Of course.”

                She settles against him and into his embrace; he knows that he’ll have to carefully extract himself when he leaves, but that doesn’t matter.

                Eventually, her breathing begins to slow. He kisses her on the forehead gently as he begins to pull away, murmuring, “Goodbye, Catherine.”

                “I love you,” she sighs.

                He freezes, staring at her. She’s asleep. Very clearly asleep. But did she hear him say goodbye and tell _David_ she loves him? Or was she talking in her sleep to some vague dream person?

                Catherine’s never said she loves him. He’s heard her tell Erin, “I love you.” He’s heard her say it to her mother. But it seems that she’s always made such an effort not to say it to him.

                Was it to him?

                David clears out of Catherine’s flat at record speed.

                Perhaps, he thinks, it would do Catherine good, some time away from London.


	3. Chapter 3

                As soon as Catherine is gone, it seems like David wakes up every morning with a great desire to see her. Of course it would be too easy for him to feel such desperation when he could phone her up and just casually say, “I want to see you.”

                It feels as though she’s worlds away.

***

                What if he misses her more than she misses him?

                She always seems so distracted when he calls, always has to leave after only five or ten minutes. And she hardly ever calls him.

                It’s not fair, the fact that he’s getting ready for a wedding and is somehow focused on her, while she is able to just prance around America with her new job and no cares in the world.

                Doesn’t seem right, somehow.

                Why on earth shouldn’t she miss him as much as he misses her?

                How come she left such a massive hole in his life?

***

                Georgia keeps asking David why he’s so distracted.

                What should he say? “I miss my best friend so much and I’d rather have her sitting across from me right now than you,” might not go over so well.

                But it’s true.

                He just wants to see her again.

***

                It’s about a week before his wedding, when he sits down to write his vows, that he starts to wonder.

                Everyone’s told him that he should think about everything that makes Georgia special. Think about those minute aspects of her personality that made him sure he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.

                But David’s got no fucking idea. Nothing about Georgia comes to mind that makes her so special, that has made him certain he wants to spend the rest of his life with her.

***

                “I sincerely think I’d have less trouble coming up with things to say about you,” he grumbles.

                Catherine laughs. “That’s not true. I’m sure you have so many more things to say about Georgia than you ever would about me.”

                “Not really.”

                Almost immediately, he wonders if he said something wrong because she changes the subject and her tone alters significantly. Their conversation doesn’t last long after that.

***

                “Shouldn’t I be eager to rave about my fiancée? I should be full to bursting with things to say.”

                “Think of it like writer’s block. Why don’t you just try writing the bad words out so you can get to the good stuff?”

                “Does that even work?”

                “Er…” Catherine stays silent for far too long, and he can’t help chuckling. “Have you tried anything that works better?”

                “No.”

                “So just try it. Write whatever comes to your mind.”

***

                _She makes me laugh more than anyone._

                No, that’s just silly.

                _She keeps me on my toes._

                That’s not really all that true.

                _I love the way the sunlight hits her hair._

                David has never even noticed the effect that the sun has on Georgia’s hair; where did that even come from?

***

                It doesn’t hit him until he’s lying awake at night, attempting to fall asleep—and failing miserably.

                Georgia doesn’t make him laugh more than anyone. She doesn’t keep him on his toes. And it wasn’t her hair that he was thinking about when he imagined a wonderful, sunny day he’d spent with a certain someone.

                Really, the fact that he’d been picturing red hair should have been something of a clue.

***

                “What’s the difference between my relationship with you and my relationship with Georgia?”

                There’s silence on the other end for an uncomfortably long period of time and David wonders, yet again, if he’s over-stepped some sort of boundary.

                “You’re the one getting married to her, shouldn’t you be able to tell me?”

                “See, you’d think so, but I’m sort of drawing a blank.”

                “I’m beginning to question whether you have any sort of filter when it comes to speaking your thoughts.”

                “Not with you. Why should I? You’ll love me anyway.”

***

                She doesn’t answer his question, in the end.

                But the question persists in his mind.

                When Catherine is his main confidant, when she’s the person he phones with big news, when she is consistently the last person he thinks about before falling asleep at night, what’s the difference?

                There isn’t one.

                He told Catherine that he’d find it much easier to write wedding vows if he was getting married to her. Why isn’t he?

***

                As she pulls up to her building, she’s exhausted and eager to get upstairs so that she can drop onto her bed and fall asleep.

                She rides up the lift in a daze, barely conscious of her surroundings.

                Then she steps out of the lift and all of a sudden, she becomes completely and entirely awake.

                Because David is leaning against the door to her flat, asleep and snoring softly. He looks an absolute mess, and she wonders when he last shaved.

                Perhaps she could just wander off and stay in some hotel for the night, deal with this when she’s more mentally prepared. In fact, she’s actually stepping back toward the lift and running through a list in her head of hotels in close proximity to here.

                The doors shut and David wakes up with a jolt, glancing around and clearly very confused about how he ended up where he is. And then his eyes land on Catherine and he grins. “Hello.”

                “Are you lost, David?” she murmurs. “Because you seem to be on the wrong continent.”

                He laughs and she appreciates it because right now a joke is the only way she thinks she can cope with his presence and if he didn’t at least chuckle she’d have to figure out something else.

                “I wanted to see you.”

                Catherine takes a few hesitant steps forward and he jumps up, moving out of the way so that she can get to her own door. She lets him in, but rather grudgingly. After glancing at the calendar that hangs by the door, she says matter-of-factly, “Your wedding is tomorrow. Or I suppose today, since in the country where you should be right now, it already _is_ tomorrow.”

                “No it’s not.” He looks at her expectantly, like there’s something she should understand and the meaning clearly hasn’t hit her yet because her frown just deepens.

                “It’s the 29th right now, David. Which means—“

                “No. No, it doesn’t.”

                She still doesn’t understand.

                She’s still squinting at him and most likely she thinks that he’s incredibly drunk and of all places, she’s certainly wondering why he’s _here_ and he just needs her to get it.

                And so of course, when she opens her mouth once more to speak, he lunges forward and kisses her because he’s fairly certain that no words would send the message quite so clearly.

                Catherine gasps in shock, but her actual reaction to the kiss is far from negative. Her arms wind around David, holding on tight as though she expects him to vanish at a moment’s notice. When she stops the kiss, she bites her lip to suppress a smile. “I don’t think your fiancée would approve.”

                “Dear God. Do I have to spell it out for you?”

                After her positive reaction to a kiss, he expects her to accept this development with open arms. But she backs away from him slowly, putting plenty of space between them. “Why did you do it, David? Why now?”

                “I asked you about the difference between our relationship and my relationship with her.”

                “Yes.”

                “I realized the difference.”

                She’s frowning again; why is she frowning? “What’s the difference?”

                “Where to start?” Her clear skepticism makes him nervous. When David decided to do this, he had a whole speech planned out in his head, and all of that is now gone. “When writing my vows, I kept asking myself what it was that made Georgia so special. Because y’know, hopefully if you intend to spend the rest of your life with someone, you think they’re special.”

                “And Georgia’s not special?”

                He shakes his head, because while he doesn’t think that’s the response Catherine _wants_ , it’s true and she will know if he’s lying. “No. She is special. I’m not saying that she isn’t special.”

                “Then what are you saying?”

                “I’m saying… Jesus Christ, would you stop looking at me like that? I’m saying what you said four years ago—we’re magic. And I think since the first time I met you, it was unavoidable that I’d fall for you. No one knows and accepts me like you and no one inspires me like you. You can make me laugh at the drop of a hat. When you so much as look in my direction and smile, I have to actively keep myself from asking you why looking at me puts a smile on my face—because really, how could someone like me make someone like you happy? But for some reason I _do_ make you happy, and I find that so absolutely thrilling. After you, no matter how special anyone is, no matter how brilliant or beautiful or funny… How could anyone compare with you?”

                Catherine mumbles the word under her breath. “Magic.” Testing it, thinking about what she meant originally and how he means it now. Wondering if she sincerely meant anything different in the first place. “Magic?”

                “Magic.”

                She closes some of the distance between them. “What happens now?”

                “What do you want to happen now?”

                Her hand brushes his cheek softly, although whether it’s another test to double-check the reality of the situation or just Catherine giving into an urge to touch him; he decides to hope it’s the latter. “I want… I want you to come and sleep with me.” As his eyes widen slightly, she adds, “Just sleep. For now, at least.”

                David follows her to her bedroom wordlessly, stripping down to his pants while she changes into a nightgown. Together, they curl up under the covers, his arms enveloping her as he breathes her in.

                After careful consideration, he whispers, “I love you.”

                The words send a shiver down her spine, because she knows that he means it.


End file.
